


when i'm down on my knees, you're how i pray

by whiteautumn



Series: you're my kingdom come [3]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Biting, I will put that out there first, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Not Beta Read, Romance, Sex in a Car, authoress has issues, authoress' first smut be gentle, this kaneki has issues because canon!Kaneki has issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 07:26:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5488721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiteautumn/pseuds/whiteautumn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“This is proof, Ken.”</p><p>“Proof that you’re alive. Proof that you're human.”</p><p>When Ken forgets how to feel, Kishou will always be there to teach him - again and again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when i'm down on my knees, you're how i pray

**Author's Note:**

> **Notes:** Two in three days, I'm on a roll. This started off as a piece for me to vent my Winter Depression and frustration - especially in light of the depressing Tokyo Ghoul:re chapters. But then I realised Kaneki's character is developing in an interesting manner and I like this new one more than Shironeki, I have to say. 
> 
> And then it escalated into me wanting to pop my smut cherry (wtf shiroi) and I thought it'd be interesting to write this and...so.... it escalated... very, very quickly. zomg. what did I just do.
> 
> Yeah... Enjoy. My first smut. I don't know what I'm doing, be gentle please. 
> 
> The title is from Lana Del Rey's Religion (I literally looped the whole of her album for this) - I've decided that Ken's side will not have French-y ones... ~~_or maybe I just hit a head end_~~. 
> 
> **Disclaimer:** I don't own Tokyo Ghoul, Tokyo Ghoul:re nor Tokyo Ghoul √A. They belong to Ishida-sensei. This is a non-profit document.
> 
> Kudos to captain-fuckinglevi on tumblr for the Aston Martin DB9 idea - Kishouuuuu ;w;

His meeting with the other had been truly an accident. On his part, at least – because he knew the other was looking for him but he wasn’t actively searching for the other in return.

One could not blame him – the flashes of dreams he had before the other stepped (stumbled in surprise, really) into the café that fateful night had successfully deterred any positivity he had towards the other. Not to mention, he had never been able to put a face to the other in those dreams – he could remember the others clearly: Touka, Hide, Takatsuki Sen, Hinami-chan….

It was only after they met, did the dreams become so much clearer, the white silhouette that embodied the mysterious figure suddenly faded like a thick fog dissolving.

He really hadn’t want to help the other out the night he revealed himself as a trained assassin, similar to the other, because none of the dreams had been pleasant.

There was always fear, a sense of despair and confusion that he could not clearly pinpoint a reason for. The urge to kill and sink into a morbid sense of insanity (which he was sure did not belong to him, but to the other him in his dreams – if they can be referred to as such) was also present, tinkling along every single shred of his rationality and reason in his physical present.

Hence, it was really an impulse that drove him to the decision to inform the other that the business meeting of the other was a set-up to eliminate him (although the other already knew). It was a dangerous move for him as an assassin, especially since the reasonable argument from any self-preserving professional would be how he never knew when (and not _if_ ) the other could turn against him.

But for some strange reason, he gave into the impulse and decided to trust the other.

His dreams started to gain clarity and escalate in magnitude thereafter, and he was introduced to an unwanted world of violence, lies and betrayal where survival depended on strength and strength alone – just like his other self had been after his tragic brush with death.

The worst came when he died, and his current partner (or, rather, his partner’s counterpart) was the person to deliver the blow, brutally, cruelly and mercilessly.

By then, they were so deep in their partnership that there was no way he could bear to pull away from the other – who had always been there for him throughout the fear-filled nights – so he decided to go with the blatant honesty with his partner he’d always resorted to when he had a dream. He was mostly sure, by then, that what he was experiencing weren’t dreams at all, but fragments of another life – and that his partner knew about them too (because there was only so much freaking out one person could take from another before they opened their mouths and _asked_ , which he never did).

The other wasn’t surprised, and that only served to confirm his hypothesis.

There were no accusations of betrayal, of hiding secrets – because he knew the other wouldn’t have told him either way – and in turn, there were no apologies expected or offered.

Their lives are here, and now.

Yet, there were several similarities – despite the differences – between this Arima Kishou and the Arima Kishou from his dreams.

And while chances to examine and admire his partner weren’t rare, he took this chance to lean back against the comfortable leather seat of the other’s car – an Aston Martin DB9 Carbon Black, he revelled in the continuous purrs and roars of the engine, Kishou had gotten it when they had to go to California for a mission, with a wry smile and a (he cringed mentally) joke about their lifestyle and a certain famous fictional character – and looked at the other.

The white-haired male aged well, it was a trait he shared – of course he did – with his other counterpart. At the age of thirty-three, he didn’t seem any older than twenty-five, even with his pristine white-coloured tresses reflecting the bright moonlight of the night.

Not that he could talk, he himself didn’t look a day older than an eighteen year-old kid (he still get ID’d in bars, and it was something Kishou never let him forget) despite feeling exhausted mentally.

He’s seen so much – both in this life and the…other one, in total – and experienced so much. It was feeling like the world simply took you and reached inside you and hallowed out all that made you human and left you unbelievably empty and wanting.

And when you begged, what it gave you was pain.

“You’re thinking too hard about it again.”

His partner’s voice snapped him back into reality – and he looked at the other. Kishou’s eyes never left the road, but he removed a hand from the steering wheel to find his, giving it a solid squeeze. 

He took a shuddering breath, closing his eyes and lacing their fingers together tightly.

The pain, the blood and the screams just never left his memories – and the more he was exposed to the dreams, the more vividly he felt them. He opened his mouth to reply, but drew up a complete blank.

There was nothing for him to say to the other. Kishou always knew what he was thinking – and frankly, it scared him.

His thoughts were never private in front of the other – and while he was okay with that loss of control, he was not okay with the memories (visions, dreams?) that it triggered.

The field of corpses, rotten in their redundant death, beautiful in a grotesque manner, and everything was so surreal –

Only the death had been real. 

He could hear the screams, the rough sounds of flesh – his eye, he remembers – being pierced through.

And suddenly, he couldn’t breathe.

It was only when he felt Kishou’s lips on his eyelid did he register that Kishou had stopped the car, and that he was crying – tears falling silently and his body shaking violently.

“Shh, I’m here.” The other mumbled against his skin, and he choked on air in an attempt to calm the hell down because one, they were on a highway – never mind the fact that it was three in the morning and there were barely any other cars around – two, it was the four-o-fucking-five, one of the busiest highways in the world and three, they had a time limit to adhere to if they wanted to get to their target on time.

There was no time for them to entertain his _issues_.

God, he was so fucked up. His scorning laughter came out as a hiss. 

He felt Kishou cup his face gently, and rest his forehead against his, their lips barely touching.

“Ken, _Ken_. Look at me.” He opened his eyes to look into ashen grey irises through his tears – and it was like looking through a translucent membrane, just like how the other had been to him in the dreams, when they had just started.

Before he met the other.

He wondered, fleetingly, if he should’ve left Kishou alone – if the other would be better without him dragging him down. 

Kishou’s frown was evident even with his tears, and he knew that Kishou had caught on to his train of thought.

“You’re never a burden, Ken.” It was said so softly he almost didn’t catch the words as they dissipated into the wind. Clutching his pants tightly, he whimpered and shook his head, willing his tears to stop and cursing the fact that he was crying in the first place.

The other him had ended up broken, unleashing a torrent of vengeance and blind destruction against foes and allies alike – including himself. He remembered – or could empathize? Sometimes, the line dividing him and his other counterpart felt non-existent, and it felt like he’d personally experienced everything that he saw in his dreams and it hurts – feeling numb from the despair and pain, hinging on a point where nothing mattered anymore. Because if you’re going down, might as well bring the world to ruins with you.

This inability to tell his feelings apart was harming not only him, but Kishou as well.

He wondered what the other thought of his self-destructive streak, and his jeopardizing behavior.

The feel of the other’s lips on his was unexpected, but not unwelcomed. He whimpered the moment the contact was made, and felt his eyes slip close again, and the tears continued to flow – he could taste the saltiness they added to what was uniquely Kishou.

Kishou’s hands stroked up and down his back and he shivered for an entirely different reason this time – another whimper slipping past his lips. And almost immediately the need for Kishou welled up within him – the other was his support, the only person holding him together and stopping him from simply falling apart and giving into his inherent self-destructive streak.

Funny, because he remembered differently in that other life. He pushed that thought away by reaching up, gripping the other’s shoulders and pulled him closer, letting out a sound between a whine and a whimper when his partner pulled away instead, jerking in surprise when he felt the other push the backrest of his seat down and shifting so that he was leaning directly over him.

And then the other’s lips were on his again, he hissed in satisfaction at the resumed contact, bringing his arms around the other’s neck and digging his nails into the soft flesh there at the sensation he was feeling. He felt a wave of smugness when he felt the other’s knee jerk at the ministrations, before crying out when Kishou bit hard on his lips and forcefully removed his hands, pinning them above his head. 

Breaking off the kiss, the older male shifted his attention to his jawline, nipping lightly down to his carotid artery – _vulnerable, instant death if cut,_ he thought in the haze of pain and pleasure – and biting hard when he found the pulse point.

He screamed.

“Do you feel that, Ken?” Kishou’s words came out as a hiss, _he sounds angry,_ he thought, reeling and heaving from the pain. 

Shuddering when he felt cool air hitting the heated skin as his partner moved away, he sobbed when the other brushed his fingertips over the area lightly – it was going to bruise for a long while.

“You can still feel pain, you’re alive, Ken.”

_“Unless… Would you like to die again?”_

“And as long as you are alive, you’ll never be a burden.” Those words were said with such conviction, it made him shiver in fear – everything about the other scared him.

“That… wasn’t what you said, last time.” He choked out the words, watching the other’s expression darken – Kishou knew what he was referring to, he always did.

“That was different… We are different.” The older brushed away sweat-drenched bangs away from his eyes, and a thrill of fear traveled up his spine when he caressed his left eye. 

“Are we, really?” He whispered in reply. Kishou’s grey irises softened in the moonlight and he cupped his face again.

“The other you wouldn’t have felt anything from that.” A harsh bark of laughter escaped him at that.

“Yeah, because I wasn’t fucking _human_.” 

“Do you not feel human?” Now the other just looked genuinely curious and he wanted to curse him to hell because what kind of stupid question was that?

“…No, sometimes, I really don’t. When the… dreams get really bad and I just can’t help but to feel the exact same thing the other me was experiencing at that point in time.” His words quivered, despite his attempts to calm his breath enough to speak.

“…You’re as human as the politician we assassinated in Italy, you’re as human as the girl we saw crying at the funeral we passed by today, and you – both you and I, we’re both as human as everyone else in this world is. You breathe, you bleed, you feel pain, you feel anguish and despair, is that not proof enough?

He took a deep breath, before reaching up with quivering fingers to trace the contours of Kishou’s – his valiant, valiant knight, Eto had joked once (he could no longer remember if that was in this life or the other) – face, taking in the high cheekbone and defined jawline.

The other’s dedication to him brings him to tears – and he could remember that, in his other life, Tsukiyama-san had done the same and he had reciprocated with a type of kindness so horrendously cruel, and he remembers crying the morning after – but that was why he made the decision to stick with him despite all the fear he felt. It was his fascination that made him help the other, and it was his – dare he say it – attachment and adulation that made him stay.

“Make me feel again.” The words came out strong this time, and he knew it was the answer Kishou was seeking because the corner of the other’s lips raised slightly at his demand. 

Dipping his head down to his collarbone, Kishou whispered reverently, enjoying the shiver it produced.

“Of course.”

*~*~*

 

It was unbearably hot, even with the cool late-autumn air and night winds and oh god, they were in the middle of the highway, inside one of the classiest convertibles he’s ever known, the roof was fucking retracted and if that wasn’t one of the most screwed up thing ever then he didn’t know –

“Stop thinking.” He hissed when the other gave his shaft a particularly hard squeeze through his pants. Giving him a particularly cold look, Kishou leaned down and bit on his left nipple, hard. Whimpering, he reached up to tangle his hand into the other’s hair and pulled in retaliation.

This was how it was going to be this time – sex between them was always violent, rough and more lustful than sentimental when he was in this state. It felt more exhilarating than any battlefields he and Kishou had been on – in both this and the other world – because he felt alive, and he could breathe despite the lack of air – sometimes, when he forced the other to just wrap his hands around his neck and _squeeze_ – and most importantly, he could feel.

The trail of tingling burning sensation that Kishou’s touches left on his body, on his scars, on his eyes, his lips… 

He moaned when the older male forced the zipper of his pants open and pulled it down, bringing his boxers along. Clutching his seat tightly – it was going to leave a mark on the leather – at the sharp sensation of the cool wind hitting his erection, he released a louder moan when Kishou’s trailed his warm fingertips up the shaft, bucking his hips forward in an attempt to get more contact. If there was one thing he especially adored about Kishou, it’s his hands.

The very same hands that wielded his guns and knives expertly, the hands that killed his targets in cold blood – him, too, in a way – were also the hands that caressed his face, messed up his hair in the mornings. They were the hands that made him feel cherished and loved, something he hadn’t been able to savour since his mother’s death.

Kishou gave him a look that told him that he was thinking too hard again, and he felt an intense desire coil in his abdomen because he knew that he was all that was on the other’s mind at this moment. The other’s devotion flattered him and aroused in him an insatiable and never-ending longing, the need for him to never leave him – because that’s what everyone else ended up doing.

 _“In another life,”_ he recalled saying, when he stood in front of the other’s gravestone, feeling oddly cold and lacking.

And he was here. This was the here and now for them.

He rasped when Kishou gripped him hard, smirking at him. Not wanting to give in easily, he reached out to pull out the other’s dress shirt – how annoying, the other was still completely dressed while he was almost naked – and reaching in to rake his nails down his back. Encouraged by the light shiver that action produced, he undid the other’s shirt and began planting light kisses and nips on the other’s chest, moaning as the older man began stroking him at a slow and steady rhythm.

“Ki..shou…” He whimpered into the nape of the other’s neck, arms wrapped around his shoulders. The other bit on his earlobe lightly, making a noncommittal sound in reply.

“Don’t – don’t leave.” The words were meant to be a definite command, but it came out as a plea instead and he felt so pathetic in that moment because it wasn’t meant to be this way. He wasn’t meant to voice it out loud. This admission of weakness just changed everything.

And the tears came again – it was frustratingly annoying, how much he was crying – and he felt Kishou pull away slightly in order to plant butterfly kisses on the drops of liquid.

“I won’t,” the bespectacled male reassured, speeding up his actions and he shivered, unsure if it was due to the sudden spike of pleasure or from the hardened edge of the other’s voice.

The coil in his stomach grew tighter, and his breaths grew harsher with the tears and the scaling rapture – he could no longer tell any of it apart but it didn’t matter because Kishou would be there. He’ll always be there.

With him, for him.

As he reached the peak of his ecstasy, crying out, yearning for the other like never before, he realised, perhaps, that’s all he – and _he_ – had ever wanted.

 _Ever needed,_ he corrected mentally, regaining some of his grasp on reality. Taking deep breaths to calm his erratic breaths, he closed his eyes and opened them again with a fierce determination, and he could tell by the way Kishou blinked that he took the other off guard.

Smiling lightly at the other, he reached down to unbuckle the other’s belt, brushing against the other’s erection gently.

“Then get in me already,” he mumbled against the other’s lips, looking into his eyes with his own half-lidded ones.

Grey on grey – and you just get more grey, different shades of grey, the product of black with white, of black and white.

Either way, they were embodiments of death created from countless more deaths. He was all right with that, however, it was the way they had always worked, across all their lives (because if he could dream of one of them who’s to say there aren’t countless others?).

This foul stench of the eventual end of all that breathed will always characterize them, and he thought that was what made them enduring in a lethal way.

It was something he will never give up for anything else – his own brand of happiness.

“It’s mine, too.” Kishou’s words startled him, and he looked up into the other’s smiling face, white tresses gleaming a salient shade of silver, glasses reflecting the soft moonlight, making it almost razor-edged.

He was beautiful, _he_ is _beautiful,_ he corrected, _and he knows me and he’s_ all mine _._

“Good,” He whispered in reply, enraptured by the daunting prospects the other’s very presence promised.

Kishou fumbled to reach behind him (with the unstained hand, he noted), opening the car compartment to bring out a small bottle of Vaseline. He wasted no time in applying enough on his fingers.

It was always uncomfortable for him at first – after getting used to the fingering he always has to readjust to Kishou’s penetration – and he hissed at the cold sensation of the lubricant inside him.

Uncomfortable, but not painful, he let out a groan of satisfaction as he felt Kishou settle two of his fingers, scissoring steadily and then slipping a third one in. Mewling when he felt the fingers brush his prostate, he began to thrust his hips forwards, edging the other in further – he just needed to be filled at this point and as long as it was Kishou, he didn’t care which part of him was inside.

When the fingers left him, he gave a whine of disappointment and hissed in annoyance when Kishou pushed his hips back down.

“Stay still.” The other’s voice was steady, but there was a hint of coarseness signaling his arousal.

This was the Kishou he liked, his Kishou – the Arima Kishou no one else ever got to see, and he would make sure no one would ever see it even if it were the last thing he did.

He keened in satisfaction at Kishou’s actions, and it escalated into a moan as the other entered him in one fluid thrust – just the way he liked it. A raspy giggle followed as he heard the other groan at the sensation of being inside him, before wrapping his legs around the other and nudging himself forward to signal that he was ready for the other to move – he didn’t want the time to get used to the sensation today, he wanted the chance to revel in the ache their act brought him.

Because that was when he could feel, and Kishou promised to make him do exactly that, did he not?

The other chuckled, sinful yet not exactly ominous, and it sent a thrill up his spine.

He screamed when the older male started moving at a fast pace, and searched for the hint of pleasure amongst the haze of pain – it was something he was used to, adapting to pain in order to continue surviving in the world. 

At least this pain he was experiencing right now brought him something good.

When the other hit his prostate, he arched up and gasped breathlessly, eyelids falling shut as he submerged himself in the sensation. Blindly, he held up shaking hands, and Kishou held onto them almost immediately, bringing him to wrap his arms around his back.

It felt like heaven the same time it felt like hell – because it felt so, so good, and it was a place they both belonged, where else would it be, if not in the deepest depths of hell?

“Ki..sh-ou…. Kishou…”

“…Ken,” the other grunted, and he blinked his eyes open blurrily, taking in the other’s look of concentration and pleasure.

He always liked the fact that he was the only one who could make the other come undone – and he took pride in that.

“Do you feel this?” The older male emphasized the last word with an especially hard push, and he wheezed, closing his eyes again and feeling the tears flowing from the stimulation.

“Ye – yes…”

“This is proof, Ken.”

“Proof that you’re alive. Proof that you're human.” And the thrusts quickened, became harder and faster, more gluttonous than lustful – he didn’t think it was possible but then again this was Arima Kishou and anything was possible for him and he was sure of that –

His second release was accompanied with a scream that sounded closer to a shriek of the other’s name (not unlike the first time they’d met in the other world, he’d realise after) and he felt the man above him shudder at the sudden tightness around his erection and he felt so full it was euphoric.

With heaving breaths, he rolled his hips lazily, meeting Kishou’s slower thrusts to ride out his own orgasm – and, oh, he was so messy both inside and outside he could feel it sticking to his own body and leaking, flowing out of him.

He sighed contently, rubbing his head against Kishou’s hand when the other reached up to ruffle his hair. The other chuckled in amusement.

“Better?”

“Mm…” The post-coital exhaustion setting in, he barely even moved when Kishou pulled out of him despite feeling the sudden cold wind against his gaping entrance and the discomfort from oozing cum drying and crusting everywhere. 

“…I think…we dirtied the car.” Mumbling sleepily, he watched with half lidded eyes as Kishou cleaned the both of them up. The older raised an eyebrow at him and gestured to the leather of his seat, before shrugging.

“We could always get it cleaned.” It was just like Kishou to be offhanded about all this, he laughed.

The other shook his head in amusement, before ruffling his hair again.

“Go to sleep. We’ll have to be at the hotel soon.” Never mind that they were already way behind schedule, the both of them could make do – they were experienced, after all.

And Kaneki Ken closed his eyes under the rising sun and the resounding roars of the DB9 speeding down the road, winds tussling his alabaster hair, his sleep free of plaguing dreams and visions.

For today, at least.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Notes:** I have so many things to say about this universe I don't even know where to start. Basically, Kaneki here is screwed up because he has the canon!Kaneki's (and my swimming in sins, drowning in rain!Kaneki's) memories - and was exposed to some of them at a young age, which explains his choice of career. 
> 
> His mother died of illness - no abuse there. 
> 
> Kaneki mentioned Eto - that's another story for another time.
> 
> And it's in here that things really begin to make sense - Kishou and Ken are each other's Kingdom - biblical symbolically speaking - and therefore each other's salvation. I think it shows a lot more with Ken than with Kishou because Ken's the one who's visibly mentally unstable. 
> 
> Also, uh, I deliberately avoided using Ken's name in the narratives throughout until the end - which was bloody difficult because this thing is 4k long ;A; - so if it sounded weird or confusing FORGIVE ME. 
> 
> Lol basically you can see how I reacted while writing this fic because it shows throughout pffft - the ending was bloody weird I'm so sorry forgive me. I wrote a portion of this when I was beside my friend's roommate (who was studying for her Physics finals) and I felt so weird.
> 
> ....At least this is semi-fluffy... Merry Christmas...? (seriously this is my Christmas contribution :P )
> 
> Yeah I'd really appreciate comments/Kudos for this one, I'm serious.


End file.
